Jamie Oliver's Big Rig Is Coming to L.A.

British chef Jamie Oliver's food truck is coming to town. This is not a British comfort food truck, serving Oliver's homey versions of the pub grub he learned at his parents' restaurant, although that would probably be exceedingly popular in this town. Nor is it his traveling political action committee bus, though you may be forgiven for thinking so, given the Che Guevara-style art. Instead this is Oliver's Big Rig Teaching Kitchen, a mobile classroom that offers free cooking classes.

From April 8-25, the truck will be in South Los Angeles as part of a 40-week tour through California, having stopped already in Merced, Fresno, Kern County and Sacramento. (After L.A., the truck is heading to San Diego, if caravanning is your thing.)

Oliver's mission, as you may remember from his television shows and Twitter feed is to educate us all on how to cook and eat more healthfully. Thus his Big Rig is outfitted as a moving classroom from which his "food champions" can teach free cooking classes to kids and adults, provide teacher training, give out recipes and generally do good work in partnership with The California Endowment.

Oliver's Big Rig will be offering hour-long classes on some handy and very basic home-style foods. There's a class on spaghetti and meatballs, another on eggs, another on soups. And for the slightly more advanced 7-year-old, there are also classes on risotto and Japanese food.

You can sign up on the website for classes. Registration closes 72 hours prior to the class, and parents need to create separate profiles for their kids, who must be at least 7, to register them for classes.

The Big Rig will be located at MLK Outpatient Center, 1670 E. 120th St., Los Angeles, in front of the North Support Building.